18 DECEMBER – FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have now entered into the week which immediately precedes the birth of the Messiah. That long-desired Coming might be even tomorrow, and at furthest, that is, when Advent is as long as it can be, the beautiful feast is only seven days from us. So that the Church now counts the hours, she watches day and night, and since the 17th of December, her Offices have assumed an unusual solemnity. At Lauds, she varies the Antiphons each day, and at Vespers, in order to express the impatience of her desires for her Jesus, she makes use of the most vehement exclamations to the Messiah, in which she each day gives him a magnificent title, borrowed from the language of the Prophets.

Epistle – 1 Corinthians iv. 1‒5

Brethren, let men regard us as the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Here now it is required among the dispensers, that a man be found faithful. But to me it is a very small thing to be judged by you, or by man’s day; but neither do I judge my own self. For I am not conscious to myself of any thing, yet am I not hereby justified; but he that judges me, is the Lord. Therefore judge not before the time; until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then will every man have praise from God.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Church here reminds the people of the dignity of the Christian priesthood. The occasion is an appropriate one, as the ordinations were held yesterday. She also brings before her sacred Ministers the obligation they have contracted of being faithful to the duties imposed upon them. But let not the flock judge their pastor, since all, both priest and people, are living in expectation of the day of our Saviour’s coming: not only of that second one, for which we are now preparing, but also of that last Coming which will be as terrible as the other two are dear to the hearts of men. After having spoken these words of stern admonition, the Church resumes the expressions of her hopes and her entreaties for the speedy coming of her Spouse.

Gospel – Luke iii. 1‒6

Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Judea, and the country of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilina; Under the high priests Annas and Caiphas; the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching the baptism of penance for the remission of sins; as it was written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah the prophet: “A voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley will be filled; and every mountain and hill will be brought low; and the crooked will be made straight; and the rough ways plain; And all flesh will see the salvation of God.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

You are near, O Lord, for the inheritance of your people has passed into the hands of the Gentiles, and the land which you promised to Abraham is now but a province of that vast empire to which your own is to succeed. The oracles of the Prophets are being rapidly fulfilled, each in its turn. The prediction of Jacob himself has been accomplished: The sceptre is taken from Judah. Everything is ready for your coming, O Jesus! Thus it is that you renew the face of the Earth. Deign, also, I beseech you, to renew my heart, and give me courage during these last few hours of my preparation for receiving you. I feel the need I have of withdrawing into solitude, of receiving the baptism of penance, of making straight all my ways: O divine Saviour, let all this be done in me, that so my joy may be full on the day of your coming.

18 DECEMBER – THE EXPECTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This Feast which is now kept, not only throughout the whole of Spain, but in almost all the Churches of the Catholic world, owes its origin to the Bishops of the tenth Council of Toledo in 656. These Prelates having thought that there was an incongruity in the ancient practice of celebrating the feast of the Annunciation on the twenty-fifth of March inasmuch as this joyful solemnity frequently occurs at the time when the Church is intent upon the Passion of our Lord and is sometimes obliged to be transferred into Easter Time with which it is out of harmony for another reason — they decreed that, henceforth, in the Church of Spain there should be kept, eight days before Christmas, a solemn Feast with an Octave, in honour of the Annunciation, and as a preparation for the great solemnity of our Lord’s Nativity. In course of time, however, the Church of Spain saw the necessity of returning to the practice of the Church of Rome, and of those of the whole world, which solemnise the twenty-fifth of March as the day of our Lady’s Annunciation and the Incarnation of the Son of God. But such had been, for ages, the devotion of the people for the Feast of the eighteenth of December, that it was considered requisite to maintain some vestige of it. They discontinued, therefore, to celebrate the Annunciation on this day but the faithful were requested to consider, with devotion, what must have been the sentiments of the Holy Mother of God during the days immediately preceding her giving him birth. A new Feast was instituted, under the name of the Expectation of the Blessed Virgin’s Delivery. This Feast, which sometimes goes under the name of Our Lady of O, or the Feast of O, on account of the Great Antiphons which are sung during these days and, in a special manner, of that which begins O Virgo Virginum (which is still used in the Vespers of the Expectation together with the O Adonai, the Antiphon of the Advent Office) — is kept with great devotion in Spain. A High Mass is sung, at a very early hour, each morning during the Octave, at which all who are with child, whether rich or poor, consider it a duty to assist that they may thus honour our Lady’s Maternity and beg her blessing upon themselves.

It is not to be wondered at that the Holy See has approved of this pious practice being introduced into almost every other country. We find that the Church of Milan, long before Rome conceded this feast to the various dioceses of Christendom, celebrated the Office of our Lady’s Annunciation on the sixth and last Sunday of Advent, and called the whole week following the Hebdomada de Exceptato (for thus the popular expression had corrupted the word Expectato). But these details belong strictly to the archaeology of Liturgy, and enter not into the plan of our present work. Let us, then, return to the Feast of our Lady’s Expectation which the Church has established and sanctioned as a new means of exciting the attention of the faithful during these last days of Advent. Most just indeed it is, Holy Mother of God, that we should unite in that ardent desire you had to see Him who had been concealed for nine months in your chaste womb; to know the features of this Son of the heavenly Father, who is also yours; to come to that blissful hour of his Birth, which will give Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace to men of good-will. Yes, dear Mother, the time is fast approaching, though not fast enough to satisfy your desires and ours. Make us redouble our attention to the great mystery. Complete our preparation by your powerful prayers for us, that when the solemn hour is come, our Jesus may find no obstacle to His entering into our hearts.

THE GREAT ANTIPHON TO OUR LADY

O Virgin of virgins ! How shall this be! for never was there one like thee, nor will there ever be. Ye daughters of Jerusalem, why look ye wondering at me? What ye behold, is a divine mystery.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Philippi in Macedonia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Rufus and Zosimus (107 AD), who were of the number of the disciples by whom the primitive church was founded among the Jews and Greeks. Their happy martyrdom is mentioned by St. Polycarp in his Epistle to the Philippians.

At Laodicea in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Theotimus and Basilian.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Quinctus, Simplicius and others, who suffered in the persecution of Decius and Valerian.

In the same country, St. Moysetes, martyr.

Also in Africa, the holy martyrs Victurus, Victor, Victorinus, Adjutor, Quartus and thirty others.

At Mopsuestia in Cilicia, St. Auxentius, bishop, who, while he was a soldier under Licinius, preferred to surrender his military insignia rather than to offer grapes to Bacchus. Having been made bishop, he was renowned for merit and rested in peace.

At Tours, St. Gratian, consecrated first bishop of that city by Pope St. Fabrian. Celebrated for many miracles, he calmly went to his repose in the Lord.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

22 APRIL – SAINTS SOTUS AND CAIUS (Popes and Martyrs)

 

Soter was born at Fondi in Campania. He passed a decree forbidding virgins consecrated to God to touch the sacred Vessels and Palls, or to exercise the office of Thurifer in the Church. He also decreed that on Maundy Thursday, the Body of Christ should be received by all, excepting those who were forbidden to do so by reason of some grievous sin. His Pontificate lasted 3 years, 11 months and 18 days. He was crowned with martyrdom during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius and was buried in the Cemetery which was afterwards called the Cemetery of Caliixtus. In the month of December, according to the custom observed by his predecessors, he ordained 18 Priests, 9 Deacons, and 11 Bishops.

Caius was a native of Dalmatia and a relation of the emperor Diocletian. He decreed that the following ecclesiastic orders or honours should precede the ordination of a Bishop: Door-keeper, Lector, Exorcist, Acolyte, Sub-deacon, Deacon and Priest. For some time he concealed himself in a cave in order to escape the cruelty exercised against the Christians by Diocletian, but after eight years, he, together with his brother Gabinus, received the crown of martyrdom. He governed the Church 12 years, 4 months and 5 days. He ordained in the month of December, 25 Priests, 8 Deacons and 5 Bishops. He was buried in the Cemetery of Callixtus on the 10th of the Calends of May (April 22nd). Urban VIII revived his memory in Rome, restored his Church, which was in ruins, and honoured it with a Title, a Station, and the relics of the Saint.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The palms of two martyred Popes are intertwined and grace this day of the Calendar. Soter suffered for Christ in the second, and Caius in the third century. A hundred years separate them, and yet we have the same energy of faith, the same jealous fidelity to keep intact the depositum left by Christ to His Church. What human society ever existed that produced heroes for century after century? The society, however, which was founded by Christ — in other words, the Church — is based on that traditional devotedness which consists in laying down one’s life for the Faith. And if so, we may be sure that the spirit of martyrdom would show itself in them that were the Heads and Fathers of this Society. The first thirty successors of Saint Peter paid dearly for the honour of the Supreme Pontificate: they were martyrs. How grand the throne of our Risen Jesus, surrounded as it is by all these kings clad in their triumphant scarlet robes!

Soter was the immediate successor of Anicetus whose feast we kept on the 17th of this month. Time has effaced the details of his life. Eusebius, however, gives us a fragment of a Letter written by Saint Diooysius, Bishop of Corinth, in which thanks are expressed to the Pontiff for the alms he sent to the faithful of that Church during a famine. An Apostolic Letter was sent with these alms and Saint Dionysius tells us that it was read in the assemblies of the Faithful, together with the one addressed to the same Church, in the preceding century, by Saint Clement. The Roman Pontiffs have ever united charity to their fidelity in preserving pure the Deposit of our Faith. With regard to Caius, he suffered death in the terrible persecution under Diocletian, and little more than a mere mention of his name is given in the annals of Christian Rome.

* * * * *

O holy Pontiffs, you are of the number of those who went through the great tribulation (Apocalypse vii. 14) and passed, through fire and water (Psalm lxv. 12), to the eternal shores of Heaven. The thought of Jesus’ victory over death gave you courage: you remembered how His Passion was followed by a glorious Resurrection. By imitating Him in laying down your lives for your sheep, you have taught us how we also should think no sacrifice too great to be made for our Faith. Get us this heroic courage. Baptism has numbered us among the soldiers of Christ. Confirmation has given us the Spirit of Fortitude. We must, then, be ready for battle. It may be that even in our own times a persecution may rage against the Church. At all events, we have to fight against ourselves, the spirit of the world and Satan: support us by your prayers. You were once the Fathers of the Christian people. You are still animated with the pastoral charity which then filled your hearts. Protect us and make us loyal to the God whose cause was so clear to you when here on Earth.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Smyrna, the Saints Apelles and Lucius who were among the first disciples of Christ.

The same day, many holy martyrs who, the year following the death of St. Simeon, and on the anniversary of the Passion of Our Lord, were put to the sword for the name of Christ throughout Persia under king Sapor. Among those who then suffered for the faith were the eunuch Azades, a favourite of the king; Milles, a bishop renowned for sanctity and miracles; the bishop Acepsimas, with one of his priests named James; also Aithalas and Joseph, priests; Azadan and Abdiesus, deacons, and many other clerics; Mareas and Bicor, bishops, with twenty other bishops, and nearly two hundred and fifty clerics; many monks and consecrated virgins, among whom was the sister of St. Simeon, called Tarbula, with her maid-servant, who were both killed in a most cruel manner by being tied to stakes and sawed in two.

Also in Persia, the Saints Parmenius, Helimenas and Chrysotelus, priests, Lucas and Mucius, deacons, whose triumph is related in the Acts of Saints Abdon and Sennen.

At Alexandria, the birthday of the martyr St. Leonides who suffered under Severus.

At Lyons, in the persecution of Antoninus Verus, St. Epipodius who was arrested with Alexander, his companion, and after undergoing severe torments consummated his martyrdom by decapitation.

At Sens, St. Leo, bishop and confessor.

At Anastasiopolis, St. Theodore, a bishop renowned for miracles.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

18 DECEMBER – SECOND GREAT ANTIPHON

O Adonai, and leader of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the flaming bush, and gaves him the law on Sinai: come and redeem us by thy outstretched arm.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

O Sovereign Lord! O Adonai! come and redeem us, not by your power, but by your humility. Heretofore, you showed yourself to Moses your servant in the midst of a mysterious flame. You gave your law to your people amid thunder and lightning. Now, on the contrary, you come not to terrify, but to save us. Your chaste Mother having heard the Emperor’s edict which obliges her and Joseph her Spouse to repair to Bethlehem, she prepares everything needed for your divine birth. She prepares for you, O Sun of Justice! the humble swathing-bands with which to cover your nakedness, and protect you, the Creator of the world, from the cold of that midnight hour of your Nativity! Thus it is that you will to deliver us from the slavery of our pride and show man that your divine arm is never stronger than when he thinks it powerless and still. Everything is prepared, then, dear Jesus! Your swathing-bands are ready for your infant limbs! Come to Bethlehem and redeem us from the hands of our enemies.

18 NOVEMBER – DEDICATION OF THE BASILICAS OF SAINTS PETER AND PAUL

Among the holy places venerated of old by the Christians, those were the most honoured and most frequented in which the bodies of the Saints were preserved, or some relic or memorial of the Martyrs. Chief among these holy places has ever been that part of the Vatican hill which was called the Confession of Saint Peter. Christians from all parts of the world flocked to there, as to the rock of the faith and the foundation of the Church, and honoured with the greatest reverence and piety the spot hallowed by the sepulchre of the prince of the Apostles.

To there on the octave day of his baptism, came the emperor Constantine the Great, and taking off his diadem, he prostrated on the ground with many tears. Then taking a hoe and mattock he broke up the earth, of which twelve baskets were taken away in honour of the twelve Apostles, and on the site thus marked out, he built the basilica of the Prince of the Apostles. Pope Saint Sylvester dedicated it on the fourteenth of the Calends of December, just as he had consecrated the Lateran church on the fifth of the Ides of November. He erected in it a stone altar which he anointed with chrism, and decreed that thenceforward all altars should be made of stone. The same blessed Sylvester dedicated the basilica of Saint Paul the Apostle on the Via Ostiensis, also magnificently built by the emperor Constantine, who enriched both basilicas with many estates and rich gifts and ornaments.

The Vatican basilica, however, began to decay through age and was rebuilt from its foundations on a more extensive and magnificent scale through the piety of several Pontiffs. It was solemnly dedicated by Pope Urban VIII on this day in 1626. In the year 1823 the Ostian basilica was burnt to the ground, but the ruins were repaired and it was rebuilt more splendidly than before, through the unwearied exertions of four Popes. Blessed Pius IX, seizing the auspicious occasion, when his Definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the blessed Virgin Mary had drawn an immense number of Cardinals and Bishops from distant parts of the Catholic world to Rome, solemnly dedicated this basilica on the tenth of December 1854, assisted and surrounded by this noble gathering of prelates, and he decreed that the anniversary commemoration should be celebrated on this day.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

QUOD DUCE TE MUNDUS SURREXIT IN ASTRA TRIUMPHANS, HANC CONSTANTINUS VICTOR TIBI CONDIDIT AULAM. Because the world under your conduct has risen triumphant to the very heavens, Constantine the emperor has built this temple in your honour. This inscription stood in letters of gold over the triumphal arch in the ancient Vatican Basilica. Never did the Roman genius frame a more magnificent utterance in so few words. never did the greatness of Simon Bar-Jonah appear to such advantage on the seven hills. In 1506 the great arch that had looked down upon twelve centuries of prostrate pilgrims fell from old age and the beautiful inscription perished. But Michelangelo’s lofty dome points out to the city and the world the spot where sleeps the Galilean fisherman, the successor of the Caesars, the Vicar of Christ, the ruler of the destinies of Rome. The second glory of the eternal City is the tomb of Saint Paul on the Via Ostiensis. Unlike that of St. Peter, which lies deep down in the Vatican crypt, this tomb is raised to the level of the floor by massive masonry, on which rests the great sarcophagus. This circumstance was ascertained in 1841 when the papal altar was reconstructed. It was evidently to obviate the consequences of inundations from the Tiber that the sarcophagus had thus been raised above the place where Lucina had first laid it. The pilgrim certainly finds nothing to blame in this arrangement when, on looking through the small opening in the centre of the altar, his respectful glance falls upon the marble of the tomb, and he reads these imposing words traced in large characters of Constantine’s period: PAULO APOSTOLO ET MARTYRI. To Paul Apostle and Martyr. Thus Christian Rome is protected on the North and South by these two citadels. Let us enter into the sentiments of our fathers when they said of this privileged city: “Peter the door-keeper, sets his holy dwelling at the entrance: who can deny that this city is like Heaven? At the other extremity, Paul from his temple guards the walls. Rome lies between the two: here then God dwells.”

The present feast therefore deserves to be more than a local solemnity. Its extension to the universal Church is a subject for the world’s gratitude. Thanks to this feast we can all make together in spirit today the pilgrimage ad limina Apostolorum, which our ancestors performed with such fatigue and danger, yet never thought they purchased too dearly its holy joys and blessings. “Heavenly mountains, glittering heights of the new Sion! There are the gates of our true country, the two lights of the immense world. There Paul’s voice is heard like thunder. There Peter withholds or hurls the bolt. The former opens the hearts of men, the latter opens heaven. Peter is the foundation-stone, Paul the architect of the temple where stands the altar by which God is propitiated. Both together form a single fountain which pours out its healing and refreshing waters” (Venatius Fortunatus, Miscellania, iii. 7).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, the birthday of St. Romanus, martyr, in the time of the emperor Galerius. When the prefect Asclepiades broke into the churches and strove to destroy them completely, Romanus exhorted the Christians to resist him, and after being subjected to dire torments and the cutting out of his tongue (without which, however, he spoke the praises of God), he was strangled in prison and crowned with a glorious martyrdom. Before him suffered a young boy named Barula, who being asked by him whether it was better to worship one God or several gods, and having answered that we must believe in the one God whom the Christians adore, was scourged and beheaded.

Also at Antioch, the holy martyr Hesychius, a soldier. Hearing the order that anyone refusing to sacrifice to idols should lay aside his military belt, he immediately took off his. For this reason, he was precipitated into the river with a large stone tied to his right hand.

The same day, the Saints Oriculus and his companions, who suffered for the Catholic faith in the persecution of the Vandals.

At Mayence, St. Maximus, bishop, who, after suffering much from the Arians, died a confessor in the time of Constantius.

At Tours, the departure from this life of blessed Odo, abbot of Cluny.

At Antioch, St. Thomas, a monk honoured with an annual solemnity by the people of Antioch for having obtained the cessation of a pestilence by his prayers.

At Lucca in Tuscany, the translation of St. Frigdian, bishop and confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

15 DECEMBER – MONDAY IN THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xxviii. 16‒18

Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lay a stone in the foundations of Sion, a tried stone, a corner stone, a precious stone, founded in the foundation. He that believes, let him not hasten. And I will set judgement in weight, and justice in measure: and hail will overturn the hope of falsehood, and waters will overflow its protection. And your league with death will be abolished, and your covenant with Hell will not stand.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Heavenly Father! You are preparing to set in the foundations of Sion a corner Stone that is tried and solid, and this Stone, which is to give firmness to Sion, which is your Church, this Stone is your Incarnate Son. It was prefigured, as your Apostle assures us (1 Corinthians x. 4) by that Rock of the desert which yielded the abundant and saving stream that quenched the thirst of your people. But now you are about to give us the reality. It has already come down from Heaven, and the hour is fast approaching when you will lay it in the foundations. O sacred Stone, which makes all one and gives solidity to the whole structure! By you it will come to pass that there will be no longer Jew nor Gentile, but all nations will become one family. Men will no more build on sand, nor set up houses which floods and storms may overturn. The Church will rise up from the Stone which God now sets, and, secure on the great foundation, her summit will touch the clouds. With all his weakness, and all his fickleness, man will partake of your immutability, O divine Stone, if he will but lean on you. Woe to him that rejects you, for you have said, and you are the eternal Truth: “Whoever will fall upon that Stone, will be bruised; and upon whomever it will fall, it will grind him to powder” (Matthew xxi. 44). From this twofold evil, you that are chief Corner-stone, deliver us and never permit us to be of the number of those blind men who rejected you. Give us grace ever to honour and love you as the cause of our strength and the one sole origin of our solidity: and since you have communicated this your quality of the Rock to one of your Apostles, and by him to his successors to the end of the world, grant us ever to cling to this Rock, the Holy Roman Church, in union with which all the faithful on the face of the Earth are preparing to celebrate the glorious solemnity of your Coming, precious and tried Stone! You are coming that you may destroy the kingdom of falsehood and break the league which mankind had made with death and Hell.

23 SEPTEMBER – SAINT LINUS (Pope and Martyr)

Pope Linus was born at Volterra in Tuscany, and was the first to succeed Saint Peter in the government of the Church. His faith and holiness were so great that he not only cast out devils, but even raised the dead to life. He wrote the acts of blessed Peter, and in particular what he had done against Simon Magus. He decreed that no woman should enter a church with her head uncovered. On account of his constancy in confessing the Christian faith, this Pontiff was beheaded by command of Saturninus, a wicked and ungrateful ex-consul whose daughter he had delivered from the tyranny of the devils. He was buried on the Vatican, near the sepulchre of the prince of the apostles, on the ninth of the Calends of October. He governed the Church 11 years, 2 months and 23 days. In two ordinations in the month of December he consecrated 15 bishops and 18 priests.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The lives of the first Vicars of Christ are buried in a mysterious obscurity, just as the foundations of a monument built to defy the ravages of time are concealed from view. To be the supports of the everlasting Church is a sufficient glory: sufficient to justify our confidence in them, and to awaken our gratitude. As for ourselves, we will rejoice with the Church on this feast and pay our loving veneration to the humble and gentle Pontiff who was the first laid to rest beside Saint Peter in the Vatican crypts.

* * * * *

Simon Bar-Jonah was invested with the sovereign pontificate by our Lord in person, and openly before all. You, O blessed Pontiff, received in secret, yet none the less directly from Jesus, the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. In your person began the reign of pure faith. Henceforth the bride, though she hears not the Man-God repeat His injunction to Peter: “feed my lambs,” nevertheless acknowledges the continuance of His authority in the lawfully appointed representative of her divine Spouse. Obtain by your prayers that the shadows of Earth may never cause us to waver in our obedience and that hereafter we may merit, with you, to contemplate our divine Head in the light of eternal day.

2 DECEMBER – MONDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias i. 16‒18

“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely, learn to do well: seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse me,” says the Lord. “If your sins be as scarlet, they will be made as white as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they will be white as wool.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Saviour who is so soon to be with us and to save us, warns us not only to prepare ourselves to appear before Him, but also to purify our souls. “It is most just,” says Saint Bernard, “that the soul which was the first to fall should be the first to rise. Let us therefore defer caring for the body until the day when Jesus Christ will come and reform it by the Resurrection, for, in the first Coming, the Precursor says to us: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ Observe, he says not the maladies of the body, nor the miseries of the flesh. He says sins, which are the malady of the soul and the corruption of the spirit. Take heed then, you my body, and wait for your turn and time. You can hinder the salvation of the soul, and your own safety is not within your reach. Let the soul labour for herself, and strive you too to help her, for if you share in her sufferings, you will share in her glory. Retard her perfection, and you retard your own. You will not be regenerated until God sees His own image restored in the soul.”

Let us, then, purify our souls. Let us do the works of the spirit, not the deeds of the flesh. Our Saviour’s promise is most clear. He will turn the deep dye of our iniquities into the purest whiteness. He asks but one thing of us: that we sin no more. He says to us: “Cease to do perversely, and then come and accuse me, come and complain against me if I do not cleanse you.” O Jesus, we will not defer a single day of this holy season. We accept, from this moment, the conditions you offer us. We sincerely desire to make our peace with you, to bring the flesh into subjection to our spirit, to make good all the injustice we have committed against our neighbour, and to hush, by the sighs of our heart-felt compunction, that voice of our sins which has so long cried to you for vengeance.

23 SEPTEMBER – SAINT LINUS (Pope and Martyr)

Pope Linus was born at Volterra in Tuscany, and was the first to succeed Saint Peter in the government of the Church. His faith and holiness were so great that he not only cast out devils, but even raised the dead to life. He wrote the acts of blessed Peter, and in particular what he had done against Simon Magus. He decreed that no woman should enter a church with her head uncovered. On account of his constancy in confessing the Christian faith, this Pontiff was beheaded by command of Saturninus, a wicked and ungrateful ex-consul whose daughter he had delivered from the tyranny of the devils. He was buried on the Vatican, near the sepulchre of the prince of the apostles, on the ninth of the Calends of October. He governed the Church 11 years, 2 months and 23 days. In two ordinations in the month of December he consecrated 15 bishops and 18 priests.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The lives of the first Vicars of Christ are buried in a mysterious obscurity, just as the foundations of a monument built to defy the ravages of time are concealed from view. To be the supports of the everlasting Church is a sufficient glory: sufficient to justify our confidence in them, and to awaken our gratitude. As for ourselves, we will rejoice with the Church on this feast and pay our loving veneration to the humble and gentle Pontiff who was the first laid to rest beside Saint Peter in the Vatican crypts.

* * * * *

Simon Bar-Jonah was invested with the sovereign pontificate by our Lord in person, and openly before all. You, O blessed Pontiff, received in secret, yet none the less directly from Jesus, the keys of the kingdom of Heaven. In your person began the reign of pure faith. Henceforth the bride, though she hears not the Man-God repeat His injunction to Peter: “feed my lambs,” nevertheless acknowledges the continuance of His authority in the lawfully appointed representative of her divine Spouse. Obtain by your prayers that the shadows of Earth may never cause us to waver in our obedience and that hereafter we may merit, with you, to contemplate our divine Head in the light of eternal day.

 

1 DECEMBER – MONDAY IN THE FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaiah i. 16‒18

“Wash yourselves, be clean, take away the evil of your devices from my eyes: cease to do perversely, learn to do well: seek judgement, relieve the oppressed, judge for the fatherless, defend the widow. And then come, and accuse me,” says the Lord. “If your sins be as scarlet, they will be made as white as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they will be white as wool.”

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Saviour who is so soon to be with us and to save us, warns us not only to prepare ourselves to appear before Him, but also to purify our souls. “It is most just,” says Saint Bernard, “that the soul which was the first to fall should be the first to rise. Let us therefore defer caring for the body until the day when Jesus Christ will come and reform it by the Resurrection, for, in the first Coming, the Precursor says to us: ‘Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.’ Observe, he says not the maladies of the body, nor the miseries of the flesh. He says sins, which are the malady of the soul and the corruption of the spirit. Take heed then, you my body, and wait for your turn and time. You can hinder the salvation of the soul, and your own safety is not within your reach. Let the soul labour for herself, and strive you too to help her, for if you share in her sufferings, you will share in her glory. Retard her perfection, and you retard your own. You will not be regenerated until God sees His own image restored in the soul.”

Let us, then, purify our souls. Let us do the works of the spirit, not the deeds of the flesh. Our Saviour’s promise is most clear. He will turn the deep dye of our iniquities into the purest whiteness. He asks but one thing of us: that we sin no more. He says to us: “Cease to do perversely, and then come and accuse me, come and complain against me if I do not cleanse you.” O Jesus, we will not defer a single day of this holy season. We accept, from this moment, the conditions you offer us. We sincerely desire to make our peace with you, to bring the flesh into subjection to our spirit, to make good all the injustice we have committed against our neighbour, and to hush, by the sighs of our heart-felt compunction, that voice of our sins which has so long cried to you for vengeance.

4 DECEMBER – PETER CHRYSOLOGUS (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Peter, surnamed Chrysologus for his golden eloquence, was born at Forum Cornelii (Imola) in Aemilia, of respectable parents. Turning his mind to religion from his childhood, he put himself under Cornelius, the Bishop of that city, who was a Roman. In a short while, he made such progress in learning and holiness of life that in due time the Bishop ordained him a Deacon. Not long after, it happened that the Archbishop of Ravenna having died, the inhabitants of that city sent, as usual, to Rome the successor, they had elected, that this election might be confirmed by the holy Pope Sixtus III. Cornelius, who was also sent in company with the deputies of Ravenna, took with him the young Deacon. Meanwhile, the Apostle Saint Peter and the holy Martyr Apollinaris, appeared to the Roman Pontiff in his sleep. They stood with the young levite between them, and ordered the Pontiff to create him, and none other, as Archbishop of Ravenna. The Pontiff, therefore, no sooner saw Peter than he recognised him as the one chosen by God, and rejecting the one presented to him he appointed Peter to the Metropolitan Church of that city in 433. At first, the deputies from Ravenna were dissatisfied at this decision of the Pope, but having been told of the vision they readily acquiesced to the divine will and received the new Archbishop with the greatest reverence.

Peter, therefore, being, though reluctant, consecrated Archbishop, was conducted to Ravenna where he was received with the greatest joy by the Emperor Valentinian, and Galla Placidia the Emperor’s mother, and the whole people. On his part, he told them that he asked of them but this, that since he had not refused this great burden for their salvation’s sake, they would make it their study to follow his counsels and obey the commandments of God. He then buried in the city the bodies of two Saints after having embalmed them with the most precious perfumes. Barbatian, a Priest, was one, and the other, Germauus, Bishop of Auxerre, whose cowl and hair-shirt he claimed as his own inheritance. He ordained Projectus and Marcellinus Bishops. In the town of Classis he erected a fountain of an incredible size and built some magnificent churches in honour of several Saints, of Saint Andrew among the rest. The people had a custom of assisting at certain games on the first day of January, which consisted of theatrical performances and dances. The Saint repressed these by the severity with which he preached against them. One of his expressions deserves to be handed down: He that would play with the devil can never enjoy the company of Jesus. At the command of Pope Saint Leo I he wrote to the Council of Chalcedon against the heresy of Eutyches. He answered Eutyches himself by another epistle, which has been added to the Acts of that same Council in the new editions, and has been inserted in the Ecclesiastical Annals.

In his sermons to the people he was so earnest that at times his voice completely failed him, as in his Sermon on the Women healed by our Lord, as mentioned in the ninth chapter of Saint Matthew, on which occasion his people of Ravenna were so affected and so moved to tears, that the whole church rang with their sobbings and prayers, and the Saint afterwards thanked God, for that He had turned the failure of his speech into the gain of so much love. After having governed that Church in a most holy manner for about 18 years, and having received a divine warning that his labours were soon to end, he withdrew into his native town. There he visited the Church of Saint Cassian and presented an offering of a large golden diadem, set with most precious stones, which he placed upon the high Altar. He also gave a golden cup, and silver paten, which imparts to water poured on it the virtue of healing the bites of mad dogs, and of assuaging fevers, as frequent instances have attested. He then took leave of those who had accompanied him from Ravenna, admonishing them to spare no pains in electing for their Pastor him who was the most worthy. Immediately after this he turned in humble prayer to God, that, through the intercession of his patron Saint Cassian, he would mercifully receive his soul and calmly passed out of this life on the third of the Nones of December (Dec. 3), about the year 450. His holy body was buried, amid the tears and prayers of the whole city, near the body of the same Saint Cassian: there it is venerated even at this day, though Ravenna possesses and venerates one of the arms, which was enshrined in gold and gems and placed in the Basilica Ursicana.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The same divine Providence which would not that the Church should be deprived of the consolation of keeping, during Advent, the feast of some of the Apostles who announced to the Gentiles the coming of the Messiah, has also willed that the holy Doctors who defended the true Faith against heretics should be represented in this important season of the Catholic Year. Two of them, Saint Ambrose and Saint Peter Chrysologus, shine as two brilliant stars in the firmament of the Church during Advent. It is worthy of note that both of them were the zealous avengers of that Son of God whom we are preparing to receive. The first was the valiant opponent of the Arians, whose impious doctrine taught that Jesus, the object of our hopes, is merely a creature and not God. The second was the adversary of Eutyches whose sacrilegious system robs the Incarnation of the Son of God of all its glory by asserting that, in this mystery, the human nature was absorbed by the divinity.

It is this second Doctor, the holy Bishop of Ravenna, that we are to honour today. His pastoral eloquence gained for him a great reputation, and a great number of his Sermons have been handed down to us. In almost every page we find passages of the most exquisite beauty, though we also occasionally meet with indications of the decay of literature which began in the fifth century. The mystery of the Incarnation is a frequent subject of the Saint’s Sermons, and he always speaks upon it with a precision and enthusiasm which show his learning and piety. His veneration and love towards Mary, the Mother of God who, in that very age, had triumphed over her enemies by the decree of the Council of Ephesus, inspire him with thoughts and language which are extremely fine. Let us take a passage from the Sermon on the Annunciation:

“God sends to the Virgin an Angelic Messenger, who, while he brings grace, gives her the entrusted pledge and receives hers. Then does Gabriel return with Mary’s plighted troth. But before ascending to Heaven, there to tell the consent promised him by the Virgin, he delivers to her the gifts due to her virtues. Swiftly does this Ambassador fly to the Spouse that he might assert God’s claim to her as His own. Gabriel takes her not from Joseph, but he restores her to Christ to whom she was espoused when she was first formed in the womb. Christ, therefore, did but take His own, when He thus made Mary His Spouse. It is not a separation that He thus produces, but a union to Himself of His own creature by becoming Incarnate in her womb. But let us hearken to the Angel’s words. Being come in, he said to her: Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with thee! These words are not a mere salutation. They convey the heavenly gift. Hail! that is, Take, O Mary, the grace I bring you. Fear not. This is not the work of nature. Full of Grace! that is, You are not in grace as others are, you are to be filled with it. The Lord is with thee! What means this, but that He is coming to you not merely to visit you, but to enter within you by the new mystery of becoming your child? Blessed art thou among women. How fittingly does he add these words! They imply that they who heretofore were mothers with the curse of Eve upon them, now have the Blessed Mary as their joy, and honour and type. And whereas Eve was, by nature, the mother of children of death, Mary is, by grace, the mother of children of life.”

In the following passage from another Sermon, the Holy Doctor teaches us with what profound veneration we ought to contemplate Mary during these days when God is still residing in her womb:

“What reverence and awe are shown to that inner chamber of a King, where he sits in all the majesty of his power! Therein, no man may enter that is a stranger, or unclean, or unfaithful. The usages of courts require that when men come to pay their homage, everything must be the best, and fairest, and most loyal. Who would go to the palace-gate in rags? Who would go, that knew he was odious to the Prince? So it is with the sanctuary of the divine Spouse. No one is permitted to come near, but he that is of God’s family, and is intimate, and has a good conscience, and has a fair name, and leads a holy life. Within the holy place itself God receives but the Virgin and spotless virginity. Hence learn, O man, to examine yourself: who are you? And what are you? And what merits do you have? Ask yourself, after this, if you may dare to penetrate into the mystery of the birth of your Lord, or can be worthy to approach that living sanctuary in which reposes the whole majesty of the King, and your God.”

*****

Holy Pontiff, who opened your lips and poured out on the assembly of the faithful, in the streams of your golden eloquence, the knowledge of Jesus, cast an eye of compassion on the Christians throughout the world who are watching in expectation of that same God-Man, whose two Natures you so courageously confessed. Obtain for us grace to receive Him with that sovereign respect which is due to a God who comes down to His creatures, and with that loving confidence which is due to a brother who comes to offer Himself in sacrifice for His most unworthy brethren. Strengthen our faith, most holy Doctor, for the love we stand in need of comes from faith. Destroy the heresies which lay waste the vineyard of our Father, and uproot that frightful pantheism, which is the form under which the heresy you combated is still among us. May the numerous Churches of the East abjure that heresy of Eutyches which reigns so supreme amongst them, and gives them the knowledge of the ineffable mystery of the Incarnation only to blaspheme it. Pray that the children of the Church may show to the judgements of the Apostolic See that perfect obedience to which you so eloquently urged the heresiarch Eutyches in the Epistle you addressed to him and which will ever be precious to the world: “We exhort you above all things, most honoured Brother, that you receive with obedience whatever has been written by the most blessed Pope of the City of Rome, for Blessed Peter, who lives and presides in his own See, shows the truth of faith to all them that seek it” (Letter 25).

16 DECEMBER – TUESDAY IN THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT

Lesson at Matins – Isaias xxx. 18‒28

The Lord waits that He may have mercy on you, and therefore will He be exalted sparing you: because the Lord is the God of judgement, blessed are all they that wait for Him. For the people of Sion will dwell in Jerusalem: weeping you will not weep: He will surely have pity on you: at the voice of your cry, as soon as He will hear, He will answer you. And the Lord will give you spare bread and short water: and will not cause your teacher to flee away from your any more, and your eyes will see your teacher. And rain will be given to your seed, wherever you will sow in the land: and the bread of the corn of the land will be most plentiful and fat. The lamb in that day will feed at large in your possession, and your oxen, and the ass-colts, that till the ground, will eat mingled provender as it was winnowed in the floor. And there will be upon every high mountain, and upon every elevated hill, rivers of running waters in the day of the slaughter of many, when the towers will fall. And the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord will bind up the wound of his people, and will heal the stroke of their wound. Behold the name of the Lord comes from afar, His wrath burns and is heavy to bear: His lips are filled with indignation, and His tongue as a devouring fire. His breath as a torrent overflowing even to the midst of the neck, to destroy the nations to nothing, and the bridle of error that was in the jaws of the people.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

And are we then to weep no more, O Jesus? Happy we! How could we be sad now that you have heard our prayers and our eyes will behold you, our Master and our Teacher? If you yet delay some days longer, it is only that we may have more time to receive what you have made it your glory to give — the mercy and the pardon of our sins. O the happiness of your kingdom! O the richness of our lands, that is, of our souls, when your dew will have fallen on them! O the sweetness of our Bread, which is to be yourself, O Living Bread come down from Heaven! The brightness of the light which you will give us, even on the very day when you will have bound up our wounds! Blessed day, come quickly! And you, dear night, when Mary is to give her divine babe to us, when will you come? So great is our hope in this your merciful Coming that we listen with less dread to the awful words of your Prophet who, with a rapidity swift as your own word, passes over the long ages between the two events, and speaks to us of the approach of the terrible day when you will come suddenly in your burning wrath, with your lips filled with indignation, and your tongue as a devouring fire. Our present feeling is hope, for we are looking forward to that Coming in which you are the beautiful Prince of peace and love, and we cannot but hope. When that last day comes, have mercy on us! But on this day of your amiable visit, permit us to say to you the words of one of your servants: “Yes, dear Jesus, come, come to us! But in swathing-bands, not with your hand raised to punish us: in humility, not in your greatness: in the crib, not in the clouds of Heaven: in the arms of your Mother, not on the Throne of your Majesty: on the colt of the ass, not on the Cherubim to us, and not against us: to save, and not to judge: to visit us in your peace, not to condemn us in your anger. If you come to us thus, O Jesus! it is not from you, but to you, that we will flee” (The Venerable Peter of Celles, First Sermon of Advent).

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Eleutheropolis in Palestine, the holy martyrs Florian, Calanicus and their fifty-eight companions, who were massacred by the Saracens for the faith of Christ in the time of the emperor Heraclius.

At Marseilles in France, blessed Lazarus, bishop, who was raised from the dead by Our Lord, as we read in the Gospel.

At Rome, St. John de Matha, founder of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Captives. His festival is observed on the eighth of February according to the decree of Pope Innocent XI.

In the monastery of Fulda, the holy abbot Sturmius (779 AD), abbot and apostle of Saxony, who was ranked among the saints by Pope Innocent II in the second Lateran Council.

At Bigarden near Brussels, St. Vivina (1176 AD), virgin, whose eminent sanctity is attested by frequent miracles.

At Constantinople, St. Olympiades (368‒410 AD), widow.

At Andenne, at the Seven Churches, St. Begga, widow, sister of St. Gertrude.

The same day, the translation of St. Ignatius, bishop and martyr, who, the third after the blessed Apostle St. Peter, governed the Church of Antioch. His body was conveyed from Rome, where he had suffered under Trajan, to Antioch, and deposited in the church cemetery beyond the gate of Daphnis. St. John Chrysostom, on that solemn occasion, delivered a discourse to his people. But afterwards his relics were carried back to Rome, and placed with the highest reverence in the church of St. Clement, together with the body of that blessed pope and martyr.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

12 NOVEMBER – SAINT MARTIN I (Pope and Confessor)

Martin was born at Todi in Umbria. Upon ascending the pontifical throne, he strove by letters and embassies to recall Paul, Patriarch of Constantinople, from his wicked heresy to the true Catholic faith. But, supported by the heretical emperor Constans, Paul was so carried away as to exile the legates of the Apostolic See to various islands. The Pope, indignant at this outrage, summoned a council of 105 bishops at Rome, in which he condemned Paul. Upon this Constans sent the exarch Olympius into Italy with orders either to kill Pope Martin or else to bring him to the emperor. Olympius, on reaching Rome, charged a lictor to assassinate the Pontiff as he was celebrating Mass in Santa Maria ad Praesepe. But the man, attempting to do so, was suddenly struck blind.

From that time many calamities befell the emperor Constans, which however made him no better, and he sent Theodore Calliopus to Rome to seize the Pope. By his deceitful dealing Martin was arrested and led prisoner to Constantinople. Thence he was banished into the Chersonesus where, on the eve of the Ides of November, he died worn out by his sufferings for the Catholic faith, and not without the glory of miracles. His body was afterwards translated to Rome, and placed in the church dedicated to Saints Sylvester and Martin. He governed the church 6 years, 1 month, and 26 days. He held two ordinations in the month of December, and ordained 11 priests, 5 deacons and 33 bishops.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

While the concourse of pilgrims to the sepulchre of the Bishop of Tours induced his third successor Perpetuus to raise over his precious remains the basilica in which so many prodigies were to be wrought all through the Middle Ages, Rome herself was dedicating to Saint Martin one of her noblest churches, uniting with him as joint titular her own illustrious Pontiff and Confessor Sylvester. Adorned with this twofold glory, Saint Martin-on-the-hill worthily inaugurated in the eternal City the cultus of Confessors side by side with that of the Martyrs. But another honour awaited the venerable sanctuary. Beside the wonder-working apostle and the pontiff of peace, both vanquishers of idolatry who had escaped the sword only through the conversion of the persecutors, the last of the martyr-popes, also Martin by name, came to seek a resting-place long after the pagan persecutions had ceased. “Martin I,” says Baronius, “fared better than any of his predecessors since the time of Constantine. Found worthy to suffer more than all of them for the Name of Jesus Christ, he had the good fortune to find a Decius and a Diocletian in a baptised prince.”

The emperor thus stigmatised by the great annalist was Constans II. From his grandfather Heraclius, who at least had given the world a few years of glory, he inherited nothing but the Byzantine pretension of imposing his dogmatic edicts upon the Church. Like the Ecthesis of Heraclius, the Type of Constans aimed at silencing the Catholics in their struggle with the Monothelites. Saint Leo II, on the 28th June, has already initiated us into these contests concerning the integrity of the two natures, divine and human, in the Man-God. Could the Church, without protesting, allow it to be said that her Spouse had taken from Adam a mere appearance of humanity, a half-formed nature without a will, such as the new sectaries imagined? More clear-sighted than Honorius, Martin I understood the danger, and knew how to repair the past while securing the future. Scarcely had he ascended the apostolic throne when he gathered, in the Church of our Saviour, one of the most beautiful assemblies ever held there. “Sound the trumpet, cry out upon the mountain. Soldiers of God, awake!” Thus from its very opening did the Lateran Council of 649 repair the fatal silence and avenge the Church’s honour. On reading its splendid and ample definitions, which present to the world the Son of the Virgin Mother in all His adorable integrity, we are reminded of the solemn declaration in the Praetorium on the great Friday: “Behold the Man!” Only that this time it was proclaimed in triumph and by those who loved him. Truly, O God our Saviour, you are the most complete, the most perfect, the most beautiful of the sons of men.

What a solace to the mind to see the imperial lucubrations returned, with the qualification of wicked and impious, to the Byzantine Caesar who held the defenceless Pontiff at his mercy in still dependent Rome! Martin I like Saint Paul could take the Church of God to witness that he had not neglected his duty of enlightening the flock. He could remind the pastors of the price at which Christ had purchased the sheep committed to their care: he himself was ready for everything. His martyrdom was to secure the final triumph of which the sixth general Council and Saint Leo II were destined to gather the fruits. The Greeks celebrate on the 13th April the feast of this glorious Pope whom they call a “corypheus of divine dogmas, the honour of Peter’s See, the pontiff who maintained the Church unshaken on the divine Rock.”

* * * * *

If it is just that the human race should honour its members in proportion as it has been honoured by them, you, O holy Pontiff, deserve a glorious memory. For, not only were your wonderful virtues such as cause the very powers of Heaven to admire our Earth, but you likewise compelled Satan to humble himself before our human nature. Deified entirely in the Person of God the Son, it is through you that it was fully recognised as such in spite of contradictions, in spite of the powerful ones of this world leaguing with the spirits of wickedness to overcloud this incomparable nobility of the sons of Adam. How comes it, that man is ever ready to join hands with Satan for his own destruction? But Lucifer himself was at first his own only enemy, and surely his folly is more difficult to explain than that of the frail creature he strives to draw after him along the path of pride which led him to perdition. It is pride that made him the prince of folly and the father of lies. His intellect, though the loftiest in Heaven, was not proof against self-love which induced him to take complacency in his created nothingness, to detain the truth of God in injustice (Romans i. 18) and to prefer darkness to the light. Thus it is that men, following Satan’s example and dishonouring God to exalt themselves, become vain in their thoughts (Romans i. 21) till such a darkness comes over their mind and heart and senses, as strikes with astonishment the soul that remains simple and upright in its humility.

Protect us, then, O holy Pontiff! keep up in us the understanding of God’s gift. May we never deserve the reproach of the Psalmist: “Man when he was in honour, did not understand; he is compared to senseless beasts, and is become like them” (Psalm xlviii. 13). May eternal Wisdom, to whose alliance we are called, never have the grief of seeing us prefer death. At the same time, teach us that, for the honour of God, as well as of man, the integrity of Our Lord’s Incarnation nation does not require the authentication of politicians, nor the approbation of the would-be wise, for it is of this mystery the Apostle says, that we must believe it with the heart in order to become just, and confess it with the mouth in order to be saved (Romans x. 10). Spare the Church the sorrow of ever again finding herself in such a situation as that from which your heroic martyrdom was alone able to deliver her.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Asia, the martyrdom of the Saints Aurelius and Publius, bishops.

In the diocese of Sens, St. Paternus, martyr.

At Ghent, St. Livinus, bishop and martyr.

In Poland, the holy martyrs Benedict, John, Matthew, Isaac and Christinus, hermits.

At Vitebsk in Poland, the martyrdom of St. Josaphat, of the Order of St. Basil, archbishop of Polotzk, who was cruelly murdered by the schismatics through hatred of Catholic unity and truth. He was canonised by Blessed Pius IX in 1867.

At Avignon, St. Rufus, first bishop of that city.

At Cologne, the decease of St. Cunibert, bishop.

At Tarazona in Spain, blessed Æmilian, a priest who wrought numberless miracles, and whose wonderful life was written by St. Braulio, bishop of Saragossa.

At Constantinople, St. Nilus, abbot who resigned the office of governor of the city to become a monk, and was distinguished for learning and sanctity, in the time of Theodosius the Younger.

Also at Constantinople, St. Theodore Studita, who became celebrated throughout the whole Catholic Church by his vigorous defence of the faith against the Iconoclasts.

At Alcala in Spain, St. Didacus, confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor, who was renowned for his humility. Inscribed in the Martyrology by Pope Sixtus V, his feast is kept on the thirteenth of this month.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

THE HISTORY, MYSTERY AND PRACTICE OF TIME AFTER PENTECOST

THE HISTORY, MYSTERY AND PRACTICE OF TIME AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger

The History of Time after Pentecost

The Solemnity of Pentecost and its Octave are over, and the progress of the Liturgical Year introduces us into a new period, which is altogether different from those we have hitherto spent. From the very beginning of Advent, which is the prelude to the Christmas festival, right up to the anniversary of the descent of the Holy Ghost, we have witnessed the entire series of the Mysteries of our Redemption; all have been unfolded to us. The sequel of Seasons and Feasts made up a sublime drama, which absorbed our very existence; we have but just come from the final celebration, which was the consummation of the whole. And yet, we have got through but one half of the year. This does not imply that the period we have still to live is devoid of its own special mysteries: but, instead of keeping up our attention by the ceaseless interest of one plan hurrying on its completion, the sacred Liturgy is about to put before us an almost unbroken succession of varied episodes, of which some are brilliant with glory, and others exquisite in loveliness, but each one of them bringing its special tribute towards either the development of the dogmas of faith, or the furtherance of the Christian life. That year’s Cycle will thus be filled up; it will disappear; a new one will take its place, bringing before us the same divine facts, and pouring forth the same graces on Christ’s mystical body.

This section of the Liturgical Year, which comprises a little more or a little less than six months, according as Easter is early or late, has always had the character it holds at present. But, although it only admits detached solemnities and Feasts, the influence of the moveable portion of the Cycle is still observable. It may have as many as twenty-eight, or as few as twenty-three weeks. This variation depends not only upon the Easter Feast, which may occur on any of the days between the 22nd of March and 25th of April, inclusively; but, also, on the date of the first Sunday of Advent, the opening of a new ecclesiastical year, and which is always the Sunday nearest the Kalends of December. In the Roman Liturgy, the Sundays of this series go under the name of Sundays after Pentecost. That title is the most suitable that could have been given, and is found in the oldest Sacramentaries and Antiphonaries: but it was not universally adopted by even all those Churches which followed the Roman Rite; in progress of time, however, that title was the general one. To mention some of the previous early names :—in the Comes of Alcuin, which takes us back to the 8th Century, we find the first section of these Sundays called Sundays after Pentecost; the second is named Weeks after the Feast of the Apostles (post Natale Apostolorum); the third goes under the title of Weeks after Saint Laurence (post Sancti Laurentii); the fourth has the appellation of Weeks of the Seventh Month (September); and, lastly, the fifth is termed Weeks after Saint Michael (post Sancti Angeli), and lasts till Advent. As late as the 16th Century, many Missals of the Western Churches gave us these several sections of the Time after Pentecost, but some of the titles varied according to the special Saints honoured in the respective dioceses, and which were taken as the date-marks of this period of the Year. The Roman Missal, published by order of Saint Pius the Fifth, has gradually been adopted in all our Latin Churches, and has restored the ancient denomination to the Ecclesiastical Season we have just entered upon; so that the only name under which it is now known amongst us is, The Time after Pentecost (post Pentecosten.)

The Mystery of Time after Pentecost

That we may thoroughly understand the meaning and influence of the Season of the Liturgical Year upon which we have now entered, it is requisite for us to grasp the entire sequel of mysteries, which holy Church has celebrated in our presence and company; we have witnessed her Services, and we have shared in them. The celebration of those mysteries was not an empty pageant, acted for the sake of being looked at. Each one of them brought with it a special grace, which produced in our souls the reality signified by the Rites of the Liturgy. At Christmas, Christ was born within us; at Passiontide, He passed on and into us His sufferings and atonements; at Easter, He communicated to us his glorious, His untrammelled life; in His Ascension, He drew us after Him, and this even to heaven’s summit; in a word, as the Apostle expresses all this working, “Christ was formed in us” (Galatians iv. 19).

But, in order to give solidity and permanence to the image of Christ formed within us, it was necessary that the Holy Ghost should come, that so He might increase our light, and enkindle a fire within us that should never be quenched. This divine Paraclete came down from heaven; He gave Himself to us; He wishes to take up His abode within us, and take our life of regeneration entirely into His own hands. Now, it is during the period called, by the Liturgy, The time after Pentecost, that there is signified and expressed this regenerated life, which is to be spent on the model of Christ's, and under the direction of His Spirit.

Two objects here offer themselves to our consideration: the Church and the Christian soul. As to holy Church, the Bride of Christ, filled as she is with the Paraclete Spirit, who has poured Himself forth upon her, and, from that time forward, is her animating principle—she is advancing onwards in her militant career, and will do so till the second Coming of her heavenly Spouse. She has within her the gifts of Truth and Holiness. Endowed with Infallibility of Faith and Authority to govern, she feeds Christ’s flock, sometimes enjoying liberty and peace, sometimes going through persecutions and trials. Her divine Spouse abides with her, by His grace and the efficacy of His promises, even to the end of time; she is in possession of all the favours He has bestowed upon her; and the Holy Ghost dwells with her, and in her, for ever. All this is expressed by this present portion of the Liturgical Year. It is one wherein we shall not meet with any of those great events which prepared, and consummated the divine work; but, on the other hand, it is a season when holy Church reaps the fruits of that holiness and doctrine, which those ineffable mysteries have already produced, and will continue to produce, during the course of ages. It is during this same season, that we shall meet with the preparation for, and, in due time, the fulfilment of, those final events which will transform our Mother’s militant life on earth into the triumphant one in heaven. As far, then, as regards holy Church, this is the meaning of the portion of the Cycle we are commencing.

As to the faithful soul, whose life is but a compendium of that of the Church, her progress, during the period which is opened to her after the Pentecostal feasts, should be in keeping with that of our common Mother. The soul should live and act according to that Jesus, who has united Himself with her by the mysteries she has gone through; she should be governed by the Holy Spirit, whom she has received. The sublime episodes, peculiar to this second portion of the year, will give her an increase of light and life. She will put unity into these rays, which, though scattered in various directions, emanate from one common centre: and, advancing from brightness to brightness (2 Corinthians iii. 18) she will aspire to being consummated in Him whom she now knows so well, and whom death will enable her to possess as her own. Should it not be the will of God, however, to take her as yet to Himself, she will begin a fresh year, and live over again those mysteries which she has already enjoyed in the foregoing first halves of the Liturgical Cycle, after which, she will find herself, once more, in the season that is under the direction of the Holy Ghost; till at last, her God will summon her from this world, on the day and at the hour which He has appointed from all eternity.

Between the Church, then, and the Soul, during the time intervening from the descent of the divine Paraclete to the consummation, there is this difference—that the Church goes through it but once, whereas the Christian soul repeats it each year. With this exception, the analogy is perfect. It is our duty, therefore, to thank God for His providing thus for our weakness, by means of the sacred Liturgy, whereby He successively renews within us those helps, which enable us to attain the glorious end of our creation. Holy Church has so arranged the order for reading the Books of Scripture during the present period, as to express the work then accomplished, both in the Church herself, and in the Christian soul. For the interval between Pentecost and the commencement of August, she gives us the Four Books of Kings. They are a prophetic epitome of the Church’s history. They describe how the kingdom of Israel was founded by David, who is the type of Christ victorious over his enemies, and by Solomon, the king of peace, who builds a temple in honour of Jehovah. During the centuries comprised in the history given in those Books, there is a perpetual struggle between good and evil. There are great and saintly kings, such as Asa, Ezechias, and Josias; there are wicked ones, like Hanasses. A schism breaks out in Samaria; infidel nations league together against the City of God. The holy people, continually turning a deaf ear to the Prophets, give themselves up to the worship of false gods, and to the vices of the heathen; till, at length, the justice of God destroys both Temple and City of the faithless Jerusalem: it is an image of the destruction of this world, when Faith shall be so rare, as that the Son of Man, at His second Coming, shall scarce find a vestige of it remaining.

During the month of August, we read the Sapiential Books—so called, because they contain the teachings of Divine Wisdom. This Wisdom is the Word of God, who is manifested unto men through the teachings of the Church, which, because of the assistance of the Holy Ghost permanently abiding within her, is infallible in the truth. Supernatural truth produces holiness, which cannot exist, nor produce fruit, where truth is not. In order to express the union there is between these two, the Church reads to us, during the month of September, the Books called Hagiographic; these are, Tobias, Judith, Esther, and Job, and they show Wisdom in action.

At the end of the world, the Church will have to go through combats of unusual fierceness. To keep us on the watch, she reads to us, during the month of October, the Book of Machabees; for there we have described to us the noble-heartedness of those defenders of the Law of God, and for which they gloriously die; it will be the same at the last days, when power will be given to the Beast, to make war with the Saints, and to overcome them (Apocalypse xiii. 7).

The month of November gives us the reading of the Prophets: the judgments of God impending upon a world which He is compelled to punish by destruction, are there announced to us. First of all, we have the terrible Ezechiel; then Daniel, who sees empire succeeding empire, till the end of all time; and, finally, the Minor Prophets, who for the most part, foretell the divine chastisements, though the latest among them proclaim, at the same time, the near approach of the Son of God.

Such is the Mystery of this portion of the Liturgical Cycle, which is called The Time after Pentecost. It includes also the use of green vestments; for that colour expresses the hope of the Bride, who knows that she has been intrusted, by her Spouse, to the Holy Ghost, and that He will lead her safe to the end of her pilgrimage. Saint John says all this in those few words of his Apocalypse: The Spirit and the Bride say: Come! (Apocalypse xxii. 17).

The Practice of Time after Pentecost

The object which holy Church has in view by her Liturgical Year is the leading the Christian soul to union with Christ, and this by the Holy Ghost. This object is the one which God Himself has in giving us His own Son, to be our Mediator, our Teacher, and Redeemer, and in sending us the Holy Ghost to abide among us. It is to this end that is directed all that aggregate of Rites and Prayers which we have hitherto explained: they are not a mere commemoration of the mysteries achieved for our salvation by the divine goodness, but they bring with them the graces corresponding to each of those mysteries, that thus we may come, as the Apostle expresses it, to the age of the fulness of Christ (Ephesians iv. 13).

As we have elsewhere explained, our sharing in the mysteries of Christ, which are celebrated in the Liturgical Year, produces in the Christian what is called in Mystic Theology, the Illuminative Life, in which the soul gains continually more and more of the light of the Incarnate Word, who, by His examples and teachings, renovates each one of her faculties, and imparts to her the habit of seeing all things from God’s point of view. This is a preparation which disposes her for union with God, not merely in an imperfect manner, and one that is more or less inconstant, but in an intimate and permanent way, which is called the Unitive Life. The production of this Life is the special work of the Holy Ghost, who has been sent into this world that He may maintain each one of our souls in the possession of Christ, and may bring to perfection the love whereby the creature is united with its God.

In this state, in this Unitive Life, the soul is made to relish, and assimilate into herself, all that substantial and nourishing food which is presented to her so abundantly during the Time after Pentecost. The mysteries of the Trinity and of the Blessed Sacrament, the mercy and power of the Heart of Jesus, the glories of Mary and her influence upon the Church and souls—all these are manifested to the soul with more clearness than ever, and produce within her effects not previously experienced. In the Feasts of the Saints, which are so varied and so grand during this portion of the year, she feels more and more intimately the bond which unites her to them in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. The eternal happiness of Heaven, which is to follow the trials of this mortal life, is revealed to her by the Feast of all Saints; she gains clearer notions of that mysterious bliss, which consists in light and love. Having become more closely united to Holy Church, which is the Bride of her dear Lord, she follows her in all the stages of her earthly existence, she takes a share in her sufferings, she exults in her triumphs; she sees, and yet is not daunted at seeing, this world tending to its decline, for she knows that the Lord is nigh at hand. As to what regards herself, she is not dismayed at feeling that her exterior life is slowly giving way, and that the wall which stands between her and the changeless sight and possession of the sovereign Good is gradually falling to decay; for, it is not in this world that she lives, and her heart has long been where her treasure is (Matthew vi. 21).

Thus enlightened, thus attracted, thus established by the incorporation into herself of the mysteries, wherewith the sacred Liturgy has nourished her, as also by the gifts poured into her by the Holy Ghost, the soul yields herself up, and without any effort, to the impulse of the divine Mover. Virtue has become all the more easy to her, as she aspires, it would almost seem, naturally, to what is most perfect; sacrifices, which used, formerly, to terrify, now delight her; she makes use of this world, as though she used it not (1 Corinthians vii.31) for all true realities, as far as she is concerned, exist beyond this world; in a word, she longs all the more ardently after the eternal possession of the object she loves, as she has been realising even in this life, what the Apostle describes, where he speaks of a creature’s being one spirit with the Lord (1 Corinthians vi. 17) by being united to Him in heart. Such is the result ordinarily produced in the soul by the sweet and healthy influence of the sacred Liturgy. But if it seem to us, that, although we have followed it in its several seasons, we have not, as yet, reached the state of detachment and expectation just described, and that the life of Christ has not, so far, absorbed our own individual life into itself—let us be on our guard against discouragement on that account. The Cycle of the Liturgy, with its rays of light and grace for the soul, is not a phenomenon that occurs only once in the heavens of holy Church; it returns each Year.

Such is the merciful design of that God, who hath so loved the world, as to give it His Only Begotten Son (John iii. 16); of that God, who came not to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by Him (John iii. 17). Such, we say, is the Design of God; and holy Church is but carrying out that design by putting within our reach the most powerful of all means for leading man to his God, and uniting him to his sovereign Good; she thus testifies the earnestness of her maternal solicitude. The Christian who has not been led to the term we have been describing by the first half of the Cycle, will still meet, in this second, with important aids for the expansion of his faith and the growth of his love. The Holy Ghost, who reigns, in a special manner, over this portion of the Year, will not fail to influence his mind and heart; and, when a fresh Cycle commences, the work thus begun by grace has a new chance for receiving that completeness, which had been retarded by the weakness of human nature.